When a jumbo jet blows apart above the English Channel, Gabreel and Saladin are two who survive and are washed up on an English beach. However, it soon becomes clear that curious changes have come over them and that they have been chosen as protagonists in the eternal struggle between God and the Devil. Salman Rushdie is the author of "Midnight's Children", winner of the 1981 Booker Prize, and "Shame".

Review&colon;

No book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which earned its author a death sentence. Furor aside, it is a marvelously erudite study of good and evil, a feast of language served up by a writer at the height of his powers, and a rollicking comic fable. The book begins with two Indians, Gibreel Farishta ("for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the Indian movies") and Saladin Chamcha, a Bombay expatriate returning from his first visit to his homeland in 15 years, plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations. Rushdie's powers of invention are astonishing in this Whitbread Prize winner.

From the Inside Flap&colon;

Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jetliner explodes above the English Channel. Through the falling debris, two men -- Gibreel Farishta, the biggest movie star in India, and Saladin Chamcha, an expatriate returning from his first visit to Bombay in fifteen years -- plummet from the sky. Washing up on the snow-covered sands of an English beach, they proceed through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.

The Satanic Verses is a wonderfully erudite study of the evil and good entwined within the hearts of women and men, an epic journey of tears and laughter, served up by a writer at the height of his powers.

Book Description:The Viking Press, 1989. Book Condition: New. Brand New, Unread Copy in Perfect Condition. A+ Customer Service! Summary: Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jumbo jet blows apart high above the English Channel. Two figures fall to the sea, later washing up, alive, on a beach. It was an ambiguous miracle, for both seem to have acquired curious changes. Both have been chosen as opponents in the eternal wrestling match between Good and Evil. Bookseller Inventory # ABE_book_new_0670825379